Updates

By: Lucía Berro Pizzarossa and Marinella Matejcic, Women Deliver Young Leaders

The World Health Organization has declared a public health emergency in response to the Zika virus, stating that "the level of alarm is extremely high." At the same time, Latin American governments are asking women "not to get pregnant." The virus, first discovered in 1947 in the Zika forest of Uganda, was initially thought to be harmless until a causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malformations and neurological syndromes was suspected. Read more...

During UNGA Week, Women Deliver, FHI360 and Johnson & Johnson, in support of Every Woman Every Child, created a social media hub and daily newsletters that curated conversations taking place on MDGs 4, 5 and 6.  This initiative used the hashtag #MDG456Live to draw content from several social media outlets. In addition, the initiative pulled from other hashtags such as #EWECProgress in order to cover the best of the conversations and events taking place during the week. Read more...

By: Lisa Russell, MPH, an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and co-founder of MDGFive.com; Originally posted on Huffington Post

I came across a photograph on my Facebook news feed a few months ago that depicted a mural in Rome scribed with the quote, "The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible."

As a documentary filmmaker and social activist, my first reaction was to share it amongst my more so-called "radical" artist colleagues who are participating in revolutionary movements, such as those in the Middle East, or protesting police brutality in New York City, or engaging in some other form of political protest. However, I realized I should have forwarded it to my maternal health colleagues as well. Read more...

By: Carole Presern, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health; Originally posted on Huffington Post Impact

In three short years we will reach the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The international community has certainly made incredible inroads since these targets were set by world leaders in the year 2000 to significantly slash extreme poverty and disease. Read more...

By: Smita Gaith, Women Deliver

Philips Electronics, a signatory to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), announced in June that it would continue its work towards MDG 4 and 5 to reduce newborn and maternal deaths. The announcement took place during the 2012 Cairo to Cape Town Roadshow, while on a stopover in Ghana. During the stopover, Philips representatives showcased several clinical solutions designed to make progress towards reaching MDG 4 and 5. By: Smita Gaith, Women Deliver

Philips Electronics, a signatory to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), announced in June that it would continue its work towards MDG 4 and 5 to reduce newborn and maternal deaths. The announcement took place during the 2012 Cairo to Cape Town Roadshow, while on a stopover in Ghana. During the stopover, Philips representatives showcased several clinical solutions designed to make progress towards reaching MDG 4 and 5. Read more...

By: Lindsay Menard-Freeman, Women Deliver

If you brave the helter-skelter road out of the capital city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh—where rickshaws, motorcycles, and oversize trucks compete with cows for two narrow lanes—then turn onto the dirt road between the rice fields, you will find something remarkable in the quiet village of Devpuri. Despite India’s dire maternal and newborn health record (each year, 78,000 women die giving birth and a million babies don’t survive their first month), mothers and newborns are surviving. Read more...

By: Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin; originally posted in The Huffington Post

My mother, Morenike Osotimehin, was a remarkable woman. A great entrepreneur, and an excellent wife to my father, who was a schoolteacher, she managed her own small business, sourcing fruits, and gave birth to eight children: four boys and four girls.

She was born in 1924, she was strong -- and she was an inspiration. Every day was a balancing act between work and the requirements of a big family. She understood that each one of us must live a productive life and contribute to society, and she insisted that we go to school, work hard and do our very best. But she also had a soft spot for those not doing so well. Apart from her own children, my mother regularly took in cousins and nephews who needed help. Sometimes there were as many as 15 of us in our home. Read more...

Every Mother Counts, an advocacy and mobilization campaign aiming to increase education and support for maternal mortality reduction worldwide, invites the world to take part in their No Mothers Day campaign this Sunday, May 13th. No Mothers Day is a social issue campaign, being implemented to raise awareness about the hundreds of thousands of young girls and women who die each year during from causes relating to pregnancy and childbirth. The idea is to take a moment aside while many people in the world are celebrating their mothers to understand the issues surrounding maternal deaths around the world. As part of the campaign, the website encourages the world to “go silent” in an act of solidarity for the “missing mothers,” women who die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes around the world, and those who are vulnerable to high-risk pregnancies. Read more...

By Smita Gaith, Women Deliver

Merck for Mothers, an initiative of the pharmaceutical company Merck (known as MSD in some countries), will be joining forces with the United States Government, the Government of Norway, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Every Mother Counts campaign to target Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG 5) – to reduce maternal mortality.

According to the United Nations MDG Report 2011, most maternal deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In 2008, maternal mortality in these regions was as great as 640 per 100,000 and 280 per 100,000 live births, respectively. Read more...